Sunday, March 25, 2012

It's Got a Ring To It

Okay, I'm not going to be that girl who talks non-stop about her engagement. I'm not. Seriously. I'm a gal who, despite my best efforts to convince people otherwise, does not like talking about myself in person. Hence: this blog. When people are like "Hey, love your blog! I read it all the time!" I'm all "Er, thanks. It's just a blog...a monkey could do it. Don't you LOVE monkeys? I love monkeys. Let's discuss monkeys." So no, I'm not the bragging type.

But this engagement thing is proving to be quite beneficial.

Claire and I were doing some bulk shopping at Costco today. I picked out 6 pounds of Laughing Cow cheese, an enormous can of pickles, and Claire bought more garlic salt than either of us know what to do with.

As we were carting out of the store, I ran into a girl I knew in high school. She was with her husband and crazy-adorable son. She called me over and I stumbled my way through some small talk. Claire was flabbergasted by my incompetent conversational abilities.

See, in high school, this girl really intimidated me. We played soccer together, and she was a bold, strong, outspoken star on the team. I was 80 pounds and a shy and self-conscious weenie. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time just trying to make a good impression on her.

Anyhoozle, there she is, with her beautiful family, talking about the businesses she owns and the events she runs and then it came to me. She was all "So, what's up with you? What's new?"

I almost said, "Well, I live in Claire's attic, I don't have a savings account, and I am wearing a shirt with a panda on it because I don't do laundry." Instead, I dismissed it and said "I'm writing. It's pretty cool."

That's when Claire did a mini-intervention. She spoke up and was like "Well, she's writing for one of the most important companies ever, she's staying with me temporarily until she buys her house and her FIANCE is studying genetics in grad school." The girl was like "OMG, you're ENGAGED? When are you getting married?" I said "Oh, well, it only happened last week. We don't have a date. It's, you know, no biggie." But actually, it IS a biggie and I'm horrible about talking about anything even remotely "biggie".

We got in the car afterwards and Claire was like "What HAPPENED to you?! You couldn't say one cool thing about yourself?! I can't believe I had to step in like that!" The point is, even though I've been staring at my new ring for hours on end, I can't exactly bring myself to brag or dwell on it. I don't know what it is, but I will say that the instant Claire said I was engaged to an awesome dude, I felt vindicated. I hadn't showered in two days, but suddenly I couldn't care less.

My point, and I do have a point, is that um, being engaged is pretty tops. Paying one of my best friends rent suddenly doesn't seem so pathetic when I'm SAVING FOR A WEDDING. More importantly, running into a former high schooler who sometimes scared me isn't so scary anymore.

Rest assured, I will not spend a lot of blogs talking about the fact that I am engaged. I won't. It's not nearly as interesting to others as it is to me. I mean, wouldn't we ALL rather talk about how I make do on only doing laundry every 10 weeks? We would. BUT! I hereby reserve the right to discuss this when and if I ever run into someone I knew in high school who scared the bejezus out of me at some point. K? K.

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